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The Great Compromise
The Great Compromise or the Connecticut Compromise took place in 1787 because it was a solution to the arguements that sparked from the proposal of the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey plan. The Great compromise addressed the issue of congressional representation. The Compromise ended up giving everyone what they wanted. It lead way to the creation of the house of representatives which was benefited the larger states but also created the senate which gave each state two senators which benefited the smaller states because now at least in one of the houses, their say meant just as much as the larger states. The Virginia Plan, drafted by James Madison, proposed the idea that the delegates scrap their instructions to revise the articles of Confederation and instead submit and entirely new document to the states. {Constitution} Madison's plan proposed seperate legislative, executive, and judicial branches and a truly national government to make laws for individuals as well as states. The New Jersey Plan, which had the purpose of keeping the Articles of Confederation with a congress with the power to levy taxes and regulate commerce, the authority to name an executive (with no veto) and a judicial branch. These arguments brought up two possiblities: (1) either revise the Articles of Confederation, or (2) make an entirely new document on which to base the government on. The issues made way for very dangerous disagreements but was the resolved by The Great Compromise or the Connecticut Compromise. It proposed five major instiutional things that are still in the consitution. (Tindall 270-272) 1) A bicameral congress with a house elected by the people and a senate which provides equal representation. Article I, Section 2: The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature. Article I, Section 3: The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The Seventeenth Amendment (1913): The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislatures 2) Broad Legislative Power Article I, Section 8: The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States 3) A single executive (President) selected by the Electoral College Article II, Section 1: The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows: Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector. 4) A judicial branch elected by the president and confirmed by the congress Article II, Section 2: He President shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. 5) A national supremacy clause Article VI: This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. (Connecticut) Slave Representation Although majority of the people in the north were disgusted in the thought of slavery, "in the interest of the southern Delegates" they realized that because of the large population of the slaves and their necessary labor to the prosperity of the economy, the Constitutional Convention now needed to decide to how to count the slave population since they were still people by all means. In order to still establish their dominance or put themselves above the slaves, they decided that each slave will count as 3/5 as a person. The slave representation more than likely wouldn't have happened the way it did had the connecticut compromise not have been proposed. The issue involved an effort to stop the transport and the trade of slaves from/with Africa. George Mason, who was a slaveowner, argue that the pressue of issue wasn't only on the individual states that had slaves but on the country as a whole. People in the west were calling to allow slaves to be shipped over there because the southwest and the Great Plains were such great farming places that they needed a mass number of workers to harvest the crops being grown there. Mason feared that they would eventually gather enough of a number to rebel and take over the country and frankly, they had every right to rebel. Continuing the practice would bring "the judgement of heaven" on the country. Other slave holders rejected Mason's thoughts on the treatment of the slaves and continued the practice of slaveholding and slave trading. All of this spurred from the decision brought up by the great compromise. (Tindall 272) Works Cited "Connecticut Compromise (1787)." Prentice Hall Documents. Prentice Hall, n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. (Primary Source) Farrand, Max. The Framing of the Constitution of the United States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1913. Chapter 7. (Website) Rossiter, Clinton. 1787: The Grand Convention. New York: Macmillan, 1966. Chapter 10. (website) LEVY, LEONARD W. "Great Compromise." Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. Ed. Leonard W. Levy and Kenneth L. Karst. 2nd ed. Vol. 3. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2000. 1228. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 25 Oct. 2013. (Database) Tindall, George Brown, and David Emory Shi. America A Narrative History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. Print. (Book) "New York Times: Prof. Dodd on Congress." Bigchalk. Proquest, 29 Aug. 1903. Web. 1 Nov. 2013. (Primary Source) Dole, Robert J. Historic Almanac of the U.S. Senate. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001. EBSCO eBook Collection. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. (Database) Category:Five institutional Aspects in the Constitution Category:Introduction